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Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

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Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

#101

Post by kyrra »

saryant wrote: post #95
anologwintermut wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the recommendation and consultation of the representative for the district and the two Senators for the state. Who clearly have something to do with this. How else can you explain east texas being the venue of choice?

A friend of mine who's a patent lawyer explained it to me once. Some time back the chief judge started putting patent cases at the top of his docket so his district became known as a having "rocket docket" and began attracting patent cases from across the country. A cottage industry sprung up in the area and the rest is history.

One suggestion was that the court was the least busy federal court around (all the other federal courts were swamped with drug cases). So patent cases started appearing there. Once the judges in the area became so-called "experts" on it, more and more companies started to file their cases there.

NPR (well, technically This American Life) did a special on it a couple years ago[0]. It's fun to listen to. It may not tell the whole story, but it at least paints a decent picture.

[0] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/w...

Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

#102

Post by pyre »

jlgreco wrote: post #70
benologist wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far disagreeing with you = criminal activity, ignorance, small-mindedness, and what 'guilty' parties do to silence their critics. Alternatively, you might like to consider the possibility your opinions are simply not universal truths.

> So far disagreeing with you = [...] what 'guilty' parties do to silence their critics. I don't think that is a fair assessment of the above claim. The claim is that threats of libel suits are what guilty parties do to silence their critics, not disagreeing.

Calling libel suits the "tactic of snakes" doesn't really help out since libel is an actual thing that can severely damage a person's reputation.

Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

#103

Post by jlgreco »

pyre wrote: post #102
jlgreco wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So far disagreeing with you = [...] what 'guilty' parties do to silence their critics. I don't think that is a fair assessment of the above claim. The claim is that threats of libel suits are what guilty parties do to silence their critics, not disagreeing.

Calling libel suits the "tactic of snakes" doesn't really help out since libel is an actual thing that can severely damage a person's reputation.

Libel suits (or threats of them) where there isn't actually something that most reasonable people would consider libel is the tactic of snakes. It is nothing more than a specific case of SLAPP.

Furthermore, I would loosely file "warning somebody about libel suits where there realistically is no chance of one occurring" under "'concern' trolling". Even if what @geuis said was libel (and to be clear, it isn't), there is fuck-all probability that he will become entangled in a libel lawsuit over it. Nobody but the deranged give a shit what random semi-anonymous nobodies with no influence or credibility say about them on the internet.

Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

#104

Post by pyre »

joe_the_user wrote: post #83
geuis wrote: post #5

Why hasn't anyone addressed the probable criminal activity going on with these handful of judges in this one district of Texas? Just because someone has the title "judge" doesn't give them untouchable super powers. There's a giant reek of illegality coming from that area and someone needs to look under the covers. My hypothesis is there's a payoff racket going on. There's a multi level system setup with a few insider…

The system is transparently corrupt in the larger, common sense of the word. The corrupt players, unfortunately, may have enough false-Chinese walls and connections that they cannot be brought up for the violation of any particular laws. The situation, in fact, is one that has become standard in the US. We can see as a broader example the "revolving door" where ex-government officials join industry and vice-versa. As…

> That this kind of essentially incestuous relationship is allowed should say a lot

How so? Would you rather that the judge be related to the plaintiff's lawyer? Would you not be crying "Conspiracy! Corruption! Favouritism!" then? Should the judge's son be disallowed from practicing law?

Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

#105

Post by comex »

chetanahuja wrote: post #34

The texas east district stuff is fascinating. What if the app and software developers start licensing their apps with a license and technical measures explicitly excluding East Texas (or the entire state of texas, for extra safety) from the operation of the app. It could be enforced by some soft of geofencing at app startup that splashes a "You're from East Texas, our app doesn't work there" type language. Will that…

Note that since Lodsys apparently sues over use of in-app purchases, you don't even have to block the app entirely, which would fall foul of the App Store guidelines on iOS (2.22) and might alienate users. Just disable the in-app purchases...

Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

#106

Post by aptwebapps »

saryant wrote: post #86
possibilistic wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this idea a lot. If the population living in the causative region understands the nature of what their governing body is doing to impact and infringe upon on the rest of the world, maybe they'll change who holds the relevant positions of power. It would be great if we could do this to websites and technology in general as well. Maybe we can start with this kind of campaign [1], but utilize geo-IP targeting. [1…

It's a federal court, the State of Texas has nothing to do with it. These judges are appointed by the President.

It wouldn't keep you out of jurisdiction (and might even piss of the judge), but it would send an interesting message.

Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

#107

Post by cft »

dctoedt wrote: post #8
geuis wrote: post #5

Why hasn't anyone addressed the probable criminal activity going on with these handful of judges in this one district of Texas? Just because someone has the title "judge" doesn't give them untouchable super powers. There's a giant reek of illegality coming from that area and someone needs to look under the covers. My hypothesis is there's a payoff racket going on. There's a multi level system setup with a few insider…

> Why hasn't anyone addressed the probable criminal activity going on with these handful of judges in this one district of Texas? ... My hypothesis is there's a payoff racket going on. There's a multi level system setup with a few insiders who know how to pay off the local judges to dismiss certain cases. Careful there. Unless you've got more than a hypothesis, what you're saying borders on the libelous. (Not that a…

Easy mr. Patent Lawyer.. Read this: Lodsys can be sure it will continue to draw Judge Gilstrap as long as it files its cases in Marshall, Texas. The other judge who considers patent cases filed there is US District Judge Leonard Davis; but since Judge Davis' son William "Bo" Davis is Lodsys' lawyer, the company's cases will all be redirected to Gilstrap.

I think this is grounds for further investigation.

Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

#108

Post by mbreese »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #80
javajosh wrote: post #28

The threat that Lodsys represents to anyone doing technology is so large that it would seem to make sense to band together. I'm thinking along the lines of creating a "Patent Defense Cooperative" where members pay a certain amount every month for the three purposes of a) patent lawsuit insurance, b) to fund lobbying efforts to reform the patent system, and c) scrutinize a judicial apparatus that seems biased in favor…

>patent lawsuit insurance Lawsuit insurance is interesting. The problem seems to be that if an insurance company is funding the defense then they have the same incentive to pay a settlement rather than fight that anyone else does, and that would just cause even more money to go into the pockets of trolls by giving them a deep pocket in the form of the insurance company, exacerbating the problem (and making the premiu…

> The problem seems to be that if an insurance company is funding the defense then they have the same incentive to pay a settlement rather than fight that anyone else does

Unless more than one client of the insurance company might be on the hook for the patent. In which case, they'd simply have to figure out if it was worthwhile to fund one lawsuit to the end, in order to see if they could save money for the other client's policies.

Lets say that settling will cost $50,000 and taking the case to trial will cost $200,000 w/ a high likelihood of success. For a single company, the calculation is simple - settle, it's cheaper. But, if an insurance company is behind 5 companies that all might be sued for infringement, then it would make sense to fight at least one of the suits in order to try to save the settlement fees from the other four.

Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

#109

Post by ksrm »

dctoedt wrote: post #23
mistercow wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't terms like "probable" and "my hypothesis" pretty obviously make this a statement of opinion, and therefore immune to libel claims?

> Don't terms like "probable" and "my hypothesis" pretty obviously make this a statement of opinion, and therefore immune to libel claims? Quite possibly. But who wants to spend the legal fees to test that? Pragmatically, it's better to stay reasonably far away from the edge of that particular cliff, lest one be propelled over the edge by a random gust of wind (or a well-placed push).

Wow.

Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

#110

Post by rsynnott »

31reasons wrote: post #50

Microsoft -> Nathan Myhrvold (former CTO) -> Intellectual Venture (founder) -> Lodsys -> Threatening Apple Developer Hmmm.

Google and Apple also have links to Intellectual Ventures. I suspect Lodsys would be happily going after WinPhone developers if not for the platform's relative irrelevance; so far they've concentrated on iOS and Android developers.
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